HOW TO PLAY DFS

DFS — or daily fantasy sports — is a great way to play fantasy football for cash or even for the thrill of having a new team just for the day.

This popular way to play offers rewards of up to one million dollars for a winning lineup, and its popularity doesn’t seem to be waning.

So, what exactly is DFS, and how can you get in on the action? Let’s break it down.

THE BASICS AND WHERE TO PLAY

There are a few popular sites for DFS, including FanDuel, DraftKings and even Yahoo! Each site has a different salary cap, but the idea is the same: Imagine you are the owner of a football team, and you have a budget from which you must assemble the best team possible — just for the day.

Players will be presented with their salaries, and you will fill out a roster that requires one QB, two RBs, three WRs, a TE, a D/ST and either a kicker or a flex, depending on the site.

Scoring will vary from site to site, but it’s easiest to think of FanDuel as half-point PPR and DraftKings as full-point PPR. Always check the specific site for scoring details, as they do vary.

The goal is to score more points than your opponents. Simple enough, right?

CONTEST SELECTION/SLATES

So, now that you know how it works, let’s talk about contest selection. There are two types of contests you can play: tournaments or cash.

GPP (grand prize pool) tournaments are the flashy ways to play that usually pull people into the site. You’ll hear talk of the “milly-maker” where a winning lineup can take home a million dollars in any given week and often requires a mere $20 entry. Sounds pretty tempting for those of us who are good at fantasy football, doesn’t it? But it’s important to be aware that these contests have upwards of 200,000 entries. With that many entries, there will be a lot of duplicate lineups. Thirty percent of the prize pool goes to first place, which could be further divided if multiple lineups tie for the most points that day, and the rest is divided accordingly so that those who finish in the top 20 percent of the contest will get paid out. One lucky winner (or maybe a few lucky winners) will have a very big payday.

Cash games include head-to-head matchups, 50/50 pools and double-ups.

In head-to-head matchups, you are simply trying to have a higher score than a single opponent. If you win, you will take all the winnings (minus a small percentage referred to as the “rake” for the DFS site), and the opponent loses his investment.

In 50/50 pools, those who score in the top half of the pool all get paid out, but unlike a GPP, each player in the top 50 percent

gets paid the exact same amount. Again, there is a small “rake” for the DFS site, so in this case, your payout will be slightly less than twice the entry fee.

In double-ups or triple-ups, a smaller percentage of the player pool gets paid out, but those who finish in the percentage of the pool will either double or triple their investment, depending on the type of contest.

So, what’s the difference?

As you can probably tell, in a GPP, you will be looking for max upside for all players. You will also be looking to have a unique lineup if at all possible to avoid splitting too much of your potential winnings. If it hits, you get paid — and big time.

In cash games, you either need only to beat one person, or you just need to finish toward the upper half of the pool. You don’t need to aim for the top score overall. That leaves relatively good odds for you to make a small amount of money.

You’ve probably guessed by now that this could lead to different strategies when building a lineup.

PLAYER SELECTION: CONSIDER STACKING AND TELLING A STORY

If you opt to go for the gold and play in a GPP tournament, you will need to take on more risk when you are building your lineup, and you will need a lot of upside. You don’t want to worry too much about the downside — just take a big swing. Most players do not enter a single lineup in a GPP; rather, they will enter multiple lineups — all with minor differences — hoping one will be the big winner.

One strategy often employed in GPP, though not exclusive to tournament play, is game stacking. Stacking players from a team that is expected to play well is often profitable. You can take hints from Vegas, too.

What do I mean?

Let’s say the Chiefs are favored at home over the Bills by a mere -1.5, and the game total is expected to be 52.5. As soon as I see that line, I am thinking about a stack. Why?

I see that Vegas expects this game to be very high-scoring. That can only be good for my DFS team. I also see that the spread is only 1.5 points. That says to me that the lead could change in this game multiple times. Immediately, I am interested in both Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Now, I start to build a story.

I know that Patrick Mahomes loves Travis Kelce — who plays at a thin TE position — and I am going to have to pay up for that pair. For my flex spot, I want to consider another Chiefs receiver in this game since I think the ball will be in the air. I’ll need to save some salary, so maybe I can pivot to Marquez Valdes-Scantling or Kadarius Toney and hope Mahomes finds them in the end zone. On the other side of this, it seems like Stefon Diggs will need to be involved if the Bills are going to keep up, so I am also going to spend up for a Bills WR. I’m choosing to spend down at the RB position based on how I think the game script will play out. One tip: Don’t stack only one side of the game. If you believe the game will be high-scoring, you’ll want players from both sides. Think of it as sending points back the other way — and you get to keep them all.

In my story, I could have also chosen to start Allen, Diggs and Gabriel Davis and send points back with Isiah Pacheco and Kelce instead. Both lineups have a chance to win, and I am likely to enter a few different options in the tournament based on how I think this game will play out.

You won’t be able to fill out your lineup entirely with players from the same game, so you’ll also want to add some high-upside players from another game to make your lineup more unique. Maybe it’s even a random kicker. The relative value of a big individual performance isn’t nearly as meaningful if the player is in a high percentage of your opponents’ lineups (also referred to as “the chalk”), so don’t be afraid to go contrarian with a player who has a low roster percentage.

Now, let’s say you want to play a cash game. Stacking can still apply and still work well, but in a cash game, you are looking for more of a solid floor. If you stack a game and it goes sideways, you may wish you had just picked bell-cow running backs and wideouts that always get targets from across many NFL games, dividing your risk. In this case, you won’t be too worried about how much a player is rostered. Again, a player who is heavily rostered is often referred to as “chalk.” Chalk is often a good thing for your cash lineups because it represents a solid floor.

BANKROLL

The money you choose to invest this season in DFS is referred to as your bankroll. The most important thing to remember is that building your bankroll requires discipline. I’d recommend betting no more than 10 percent of your bankroll on any given contest as you slowly start to build your winnings. Playing mostly cash games, in which you have close to a 50 percent chance of winning, is the way to go for about 80 percent of your contests, while the other 20 percent could be invested in GPPs. Most importantly, don’t ever bet your entire bankroll on one contest.

Cold streaks can happen, but remember: Slow and steady wins the race.

OTHER STRATEGIES AND TIPS

Remember, building a DFS lineup is a lineup for one day only. Matchups matter! Just because a player has a star name doesn’t mean he will be the best for DFS that day. Use Vegas as your guide for hints as to which games may produce the most points.

Last year, Geno Smith was the fifth-highest-scoring QB for DFS. If you used him in Week 4 vs. the Lions last year, you got a huge bargain on his salary, and you could have spent up for the chalk play of Austin Ekeler vs. the Texans. Always look for favorable defensive matchups.

A couple more tips: Always look for players returning from injury whose salary may still be low, and check recent trends for who has been receiving more snaps and targets. These players could represent great value to help stay within your salary cap.